Great achievement that it was how false did it really represent how good we are?

We went 12 or so games without a win over the winter an only won 5 from December 12th to the end of the season.
All the results we got before that against the big teams all seem to fall at exactly the right time Spurs were struggling at Wembley, Chelsea down to 9 men etc.
All the other teams that usually battle for 7th were having poor seasons, how many other seasons could anybody win just 5 games in 6 months an still finish 7th?

Was we really that good or the rest just that poor?

It was certainly an impressive achievement. However, 54 points wouldn't normally secure a position quite as high as 7th. So aside from performing well we also had a bit of luck that teams around us (Everton, Leicester) underachieved.

IndigoLake wrote:It was certainly an impressive achievement. However, 54 points wouldn't normally secure a position quite as high as 7th. So aside from performing well we also had a bit of luck that teams around us (Everton, Leicester) underachieved.

in the 5 previous season 54 points would have got either 8th or 9th so it's not a huge leap up. It is higher than usual though but I think that can be explained by a combination of three things.

1) The league winners hogged a greater share of the points available than usual.
2) There was no team that fell off the bottom of the table, which means all three relegated teams were sapping points from the rest of the table. This isn't unusual, but it's still a factor.
3) There was a team taking points from teams who weren't expected to take so many points from teams (us)


I don't think it was a false position. If Citeh weren't so dominant then there'd be more points for the rest of us, and there's no reason why we couldn't have got more than the one we got. Likewise if the bottom team fell off then we might not have dropped 3 points to them at home.

Lots of "ifs" and "mights" of course, but there's no reason to think that 54 points last season is a worse result than the 61 points the 7th placed team got the season. In fact the season prior is a pretty good example of why we shouldnt' look at points total as a measure of success over league position. In that season the 7th placed team got 61 points, but a bad argument could be made to say that that season only 47 points was needed because 8th place got 46. But then that would be 14 whole points that other teams would get, some of which would have to go to teams on or around 46 points, thus lifting the points required.

Burnley was the 7th best team last season. It's not false. It was measured over the course of 38 games and we were 7th best. And it wasn't close, we were 5 points better than 8th and 9 points worse than 6th.

It wasn't 'lucky'.
We finished in 7th place on merit!
If other clubs that are expected to finish higher than us over a full season aren't able to, thats not our fault!
We deserved, and earned 7th place.

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Buxtonclaret wrote:It wasn't 'lucky'.
We finished in 7th place on merit!
If other clubs that are expected to finish higher than us over a full season aren't able to, thats not our fault!
We deserved, and earned 7th place.

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This. Last season we were the seventh best team in the league, this season we arent.

There was luck involved, there always is in football, but it did represent how good we were last season. What it didn't do is represent how good we *are*.

I’d take 17th right now.

Very false.


And anyone who didn’t realise that either at the time or now are simply kidding themselves.

''last season we were 7th on merit this season'' so far we are not! bit more positive slant on it now as I look out on this morning the sky has a pinky rose colour with or without my glasses

7th was well deserved but me and many others on here warned at the end of summer that all other teams had moved on in the transfer market and we had stood still, only to get personal insults by the happy clappers for doing so.

The happy clappers even claimed we had a good window, one happy clapper said it was our best ever transfer window

Clearly a lot of clubs underachieved last year for us to finish 7th.

Doesn't take anything away from the fact we managed to do it though, and deserved to do it as well.

And we started this season reasonably okay, but players have lost confidence and form to where we are now.

No reason to think we can't get out of it, but we do need to get our act together this week or we really will have an uphill task.

We pulled off some great results last season, but I do think the quality of the league was very poor compared to most Premier League seasons.

Even Man United managed to finish 2nd, so it must have been bad.

It won't be long before someone says that we could just as easily have been relegated had we not been as lucky with the results!

Spijed wrote:It won't be long before someone says that we could just as easily have been relegated had we not been as lucky with the results!

I don't think SD will directly say it, but he's been uttering a lot about last season and this being very similar other than rubs of the green and fine margins that we had last season, but haven't had this.

On a par with Leicester's title win....everyone else was shite!

bobinho wrote:Very false.


And anyone who didn’t realise that either at the time or now are simply kidding themselves.

I realised it last season - Dyche had to go then !!

Yes we over achieved because we had points in the bag early which breeds confidence.

This time we are low on confidence but so were Palace when they failed to win in the first ten games last season and when they won a couple they grew in confidence to finish 11th. Many clubs have done similar in recent seasons.

One win could turn things around for us. I don't expect it to come tomorrow but no new manager is likely to make that happen anyway

As false as Leicester winning the league. Remember form is temporary, class is permanent. That applies to good form as well, and it can run for an extended period of time.

The table never lies and we had the best keeper with the most clean sheets im the Prem

We got 54 points so regardless of 7th position it was a huge effort and excellent return.

Were we impressive? Not really, in many games we were fortunate but it's points not performance that counts.

This season has brought little in the way of performance and maybe complacency has set in. Or just maybe the reward for finishing 7th, a place in Europe, was immediately dismissed by the board as an uneccessary distraction so negating the players efforts.

We were the 3rd/4th lowest goalscorers in the league and didn't even manage to average a goal a game at home

Yes, defending was excellent but midfield (attacking wise) and goal scoring were a problem then. We failed to rectify this situation in the summer and are now showing the folly of our ways

dandeclaret wrote:As false as Leicester winning the league. Remember form is temporary, class is permanent. That applies to good form as well, and it can run for an extended period of time.

Class goes to the highest bidder, simple as that. You can have class but you won't keep it if you can't afford it.

Who cares? Many other teams probably finished higher than they deserved. Let’s just be proud of that incredible season!

We could have had more points last season. I am thinking about WBA, Arsenal, Huddersfield and Bournemouth at home as well as Huddersfield and Man Utd away.

Woodleyclaret wrote:The table never lies and we had the best keeper with the most clean sheets im the Prem

this
yet some people think he would not have made a difference this season.

Bournemouth might finish in a similar position this year by playing more expansive football than we did but I aint complaining. Most fans of Burnley and Bournemouth will be delighted and very surprised that we have been lucky enough to have managers like Dyche and Howe who have brought the club more success than we could imagine. At some point in the future when both managers have left Burnley v Bournemouth could easily be a division one fixture.

Down_Rover wrote:Yes we over achieved because we had points in the bag early which breeds confidence.

This time we are low on confidence but so were Palace when they failed to win in the first ten games last season and when they won a couple they grew in confidence to finish 11th. Many clubs have done similar in recent seasons.

One win could turn things around for us. I don't expect it to come tomorrow but no new manager is likely to make that happen anyway

Good point about having a good start. Having points in the bag early makes a massive difference, we were never under any kind of pressure last season really.

Nothing false about it, but our contempories were definitely not at the races, almost left us a clear field.
Everton, Leicester, West ham, Bournemouth, Brighton all seem to have pushed on this season, whilst we unfortunately have gone backwards, massively backwards as well, nothing to do with fine margins.

Statistically, we should have conceded more goals than we did last season. I think normalisation plays it's part.

bumba wrote:Great achievement that it was how false did it really represent how good we are?

We went 12 or so games without a win over the winter an only won 5 from December 12th to the end of the season.
All the results we got before that against the big teams all seem to fall at exactly the right time Spurs were struggling at Wembley, Chelsea down to 9 men etc.
All the other teams that usually battle for 7th were having poor seasons, how many other seasons could anybody win just 5 games in 6 months an still finish 7th?

Was we really that good or the rest just that poor?

With all respects I think that the old saying of the league never lies is apt for this question..it certainly was not a false position in my view.

No luck in it. Only thing that made it seem false is then behaving like a championship club in summer instead of one that had just qualified for Europe.

Simple really.

How false was Leicester's title win or Ipswich's in 1962? We finished 7th BECAUSE WE DID and that's it. We sold Arfield and lost Nik Pope, we bought a big star and it's out of kilter with the rest of the squad and look at the result. It's not good squad dynamics management, in my opinion and also the men are only human regarding expectations and the Europa League campaign psychologically.

When Tyson Fury won his world title he went off the rails, maybe our success last season has taken its toll mentally, too much social media pressure etc.

I'm feeling lazy and not read every post on this so apologies if someone has covered this. In a league situation over 38 games luck doesn't come into it and you deserve whatever you get, whether it be relegation or championship. You can factor in anything you like it doesn't matter, it is what it is on any given season. Luck evens itself out over time and if we were fortunate in some games what about the others when we weren't so (I'm thinking Arsenal among others)? I'm a great believer in you always get what you deserve over a season regardless of outside factors.

Incidentally why does one post go on about beating Chelsea with only 9 men? I have seen this stated before, why do people not remember that they were only down to 9 men for the last 10 minutes or so, by which time they were 3-1 down, they actually improved after the second man was sent off. We were actually quite brilliant that day and deserved the win.

Totally deserved. If it wasn't for our massive injury crisis mid-season we would have got a lot more points.

False is the wrong word. Remember, we survived two rounds in Europa qualifying, and were very unfortunate to draw Olympiakos. Things went above expectations last year, and were never going to be repeated. We`re a proud club, and rightfully so. Remember that pride as we go forward.